Slowly but surely, Geoff Keighley has taken over a number of the video game industry’s tentpole reveal events. Between Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards alone, Keighley produces two of the biggest shows for game trailers and announcements of the year. Sandwiched between those two, however, is the lesser Opening Night Live. The Gamescom-attached show started in 2018, but rarely gets the big reveals that Summer Games Fest and The Game Awards usually do.
Does that change this year? Is 2022 the year where Opening Night Live from Cologne, Germany really hits its stride? Well, if you missed the show and wanted a quick rundown of everything that was announced and revealed, we have you covered below.
- We start the show with Keighley introducing “a new team with a bold vision.” We see the new game game from Leslie Benizes’ team, the former Rockstar North developer who has often been credited with making games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption what they are. The title, Everywhere, had been revealed previously, but we get our first gameplay footage of the game.
- Adam Whiting, the Assistant Game Director, reinforces that they are building a whole new world for Everywhere. The artstyle is vageuly cartoonish, but there are later clips with show more realistic character models.
- We move to another world premiere announcement, this time a game based on Dune. This game is published by Level Infinite, which is a Tencent joint, which is our parent company. So please keep that in mind! The title of this game is Dune Awakening, an open world survival MMO.
- Geoff starts the next segment by asking who is a fan of PlayStation, to a decent-sized crowd up. A new Dualsense controller called the Dualsense Edge is revealed, an Elite-equivalent, with a short trailer. It has customizable analog sticks, trigger locks, and more. But there’s not a whole lot of information on price, availability, etc. yet.
- However! An accompanying PlayStation blog post gives a few more details, just not any of the things I listed before as wanting to know.
- Next we have Glenn Schofield, studio head of Striking Distance and developer of The Calisto Protocol. We get some new gameplay of the game, with special powers that seem somewhat reminiscent of Control. For some reason, this big room the character is in has spinning spike pillars which at least make for a good spot to throw people into.
- The next scene is the main character sliding down a sewer tunnel flowing with water. It ends with him being cut in half to, presumably, a game over.
- We get a reveal of a new game from Hexworks Studio, the previously announced Lords of the Fallen 2 — now just called The Lords of the Fallen. The CG trailer seems to indicate a number of new mechanics for the sequel, and Keighley finishes the showing by proclaiming “That’s right, they dropped the 2.”
- We get a new Moving Out game reveal, simply called Moving Out 2. They did not drop the 2. The game is coming in 2023.
- I’m going to get a drink.
- Randy Pitchford is on stage. I should have taken longer to get my drink. He is here to “officially announce New Tales from the Borderlands,” a game he himself announced in April of this year.
- There’s a trailer which…absolutely looks like it lost the tone of the first game. Who knows, though! Maybe that’s just how the trailer looks! I’m not in denial, probably! This comes out in October, which is soon.
- The next is the delayed Dying Light 2 Stay Human DLC. It takes place in an arena where people fight and kill each other for sport. The DLC, titled Bloody Ties, was delayed until September originally, but the new official release date is October 13.
- We get trailers/ads for 4x game Tortuga, multiplayer shooter Marauders, and the Destiny 2: Lightfall expansion trailer that was just streamed like an hour before this.
- “It’s time to move to the world of Sonic!” Keighley exclaims. We get blasted into a Sonic Frontiers trailer, which shows off some of the classic levels and a fair bit of the story. The game releases on November 8, 2022.
- Quantic Dream reveals a new game, which is not their Star Wars title. It is instead underwater, which is convenient because “underwater” is exactly how I would describe Quantic Dream, which is still lead by David Cage. The game is called Under the Waves and it’s coming in 2023.
- It’s time for Goat Simulator 3, a sequel to Goat Simulator 1, a game that has made an utterly impossible amount of money. The trailer, as you would expect, is just a bunch of wild shit happening.
- We’re moving on to Return to Monkey Island, the revival of the classic graphic adventure series. The game is coming out in less than a month on September 19, which is soon. Pre-orders get an exclusive Horse Armor item, which explicitly does nothing.
- Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn series and finisher of Wheel of Time, introduces the newest game from the Subnautica developers Unknown Worlds: Moonbreaker. A minifigs-focused title with a world created by Sanderson that is kind of a turn-based MOBA. It’s hitting early access on September 29.
- There’s a full interface for painting the minifigs that basically looks like 3D modeling software, but is entirely newly made to make it feel like actual minifig painting.
- An animated trailer starts for what appears to be a deck-building first-person shooter called Friends vs. Friends.
- We see the first gameplay of Lies of P, the Bloodborne-like based on the public domain Pinocchio story. We get some environmental shots of vistas and the main character — Pinocchio — fighting enemies and sliding down ladders. Less talk of All Puppets Are Bastards in this trailer. The game hits in 2023.
- A new CG trailer starts in space, where a small ship crashlands on to a green planet. The game itself is called Stranded: Alien Dawn, which goes into early access in October.
- An astronaut sends some footage from space to congratulate the game industry on creating so many games about space.
- A new trailer begins with logos for Focus Entertainment and Deck 13, which is distinct from Deck-Nine. The developer of The Surge games shows a CG trailer of characters fighting monsters with melee weapons and magic. The game is called Atlas Fallen and seems to be like Monster Hunter…maybe? Possibly? Anyway, it’s coming 2023.
- We finally get a real look at Homeworld 3, the space strategy game. It launches in the first half of 2023.
- Next is Genshin Impact’s 3.0 update for Sumeru, which has been pretty extensively detailed by Hoyoverse already. I can’t imagine what people who don’t play Genshin Impact are thinking while this plays. I play this game and barely know what it’s trying to convey.
- More from Hoyoverse is Honkai Star Rail, which is a upcoming free-to-play RPG from the developer. The trailer is mostly story-related.
- High on Life is shown again from Squanch Games. Disclaimer: I worked at Squanch Games during the development of this game and do not intend to personally cover this game critically at all. Anyway, here’s the trailer!
- Now we get a trailer for Owlchemy Labs’ new game, which is not shown. The trailer was just people in Oculus, I mean Meta, headsets talking and interacting.
- Time for a sizzle reel from Level Infinite!
- From Focus Home and Blackbird Interactive comes yet another game about space. Do you think Keighley saw that all these games were about space and then contacted the astronaut? Anyway, this is Hardspace: Shipbreaker.
- Next is a Game Pass PC commercial, which includes games like Mad Streets, Grid Legends, High on Life, and Immortals Fenyx Rising.
- The first game from new Telltale is based on The Expanse, so we get a new trailer for what is just called The Expanse. It is being developed in cooperation with Deck Nine, which is different from Deck 13, and looks like the Telltale games you remember. It hits in Summer 2023.
- Keighley prepares us for the next trailer by announcing it as a film adaptation into a game that we would never have expected. The game itself is based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, a 1988 comedy horror movie.
- Next we get another space game, Scars Above. This was first shown at a Prime Matter stream last year, but this is the first more polished look we get at the game.
- Another game from industry veterans at a brand new studio, Something Wicked Games. Described as “an ambitious new RPG,” talent from basically every Fallout of the last decade and a half is working on Wyrdsong. No real details, but there’s a title.
- Age of Empires IV reveals The Malians and The Ottomans.
- Next we have Gotham Knights, which is releasing soon. The new trailer focuses primarily on story and shows off Harley Quinn, Clayface, and more. It is now coming out a week earlier on October 21.
- Hey, why does Harley Quinn wear less and less makeup in every new piece of media? At what point does the name just not make sense anymore? Like, is there a directive among DC that she’s not popular if you put clown makeup on her? I’d really like to know!
- We get a trailer for Where Winds Meet, a quite-cool-looking action game.
- Spotify Presents Hideo Kojima has beamed in a message to talk about his podcast. I’m not kidding. Keighley also has a segment on the show.
- Limbic Entertainment and Bandai Namco show a CG trailer for amusement park simulator Park Beyond. The game comes out in 2023.
- Next we’re showing the new minicooper, which is Pokemon-themed. Pikachu shows you your charging status. It looks incredibly stupid, I want one. Do you think they’d send me a review copy?
- From Fatshark comes Warhammer: Darktide, a game published by Level Infinite. It will be released on November 30.
- From Focus Home and Parasight, we get a short narrative trailer about twin sisters and weird forest magic shit. It’s a first-person arrow-based shooter titled Blacktail.
- Next we have Phantom Hellcat, which has slashing swords and airdashes so I am probably on board.
- Four students in Germany made the next game, Dorf Romantik, which is coming to Switch.
- The Outlast Trials is shown with an extensive trailer, closed beta coming on October 28.
- Next from Nexon and Embark is The Finals, which has signups available on Steam. I have no idea what the game is.
- The final part of the show is Dead Island 2, which got leaked on Amazon earlier this year. The fully CG trailer confirms the game is alive or at least undead. The game was originally announced in 2014 and a series of publisher and developer missteps resulted in multiple reboots and studio switches until it ended up here at Dambuster studios. It is being released on February 3.
- Oh there’s a gameplay trailer. It looks a lot like the first game, so you can’t argue it’s not a Dead Island game.
That’s the show! Where do you rank this among the various gaming events of the year? Let us know below in the comments.
